Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of iris, the reader will see a short account, in a note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like "the hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into the infernal regions. It is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades in Europe should be artificial — this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, at least as high as the little lake, called Pie' di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian Tempe (Cicer. Epist. ad Attic. xv. lib. iv.), and the ancient naturalists (Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. ii. cap. Ixii.), amongst other beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rain. bows of the lake Velinus. A scholar of great name has devoted a treatise to this district alone. See Ald. Manut. de Reatina Urbe Agroque, ap. Sallengre, Thesaur. tom. i. p. 773. 2 In the greater part of Switzerland, the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine. 3 These stanzas may probably remind the reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-n Homo," &c. ; but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly the same. I wish to express, that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason upon. For the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Shakspeare ("To be, or not to be," for instance), from the habit of having them hammered into us at eight years old, as an exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so that when we are old enough to enjoy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the continent, young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their LXXVI. Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. LXXVII. Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, 4 Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse To understand, not feel thy lyric flow, To comprehend, but never love thy verse: Although no deeper Moralist rehearse Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce, Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart, Yet fare thee well-upon Soracte's ridge we part. LXXVIII. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, 5 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her wither'd hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 6 The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one could, or can be, more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason; a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury, was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too late when I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this im perfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if, by more closely fol lowing his injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor. 4 [Lord Byron's prepossession against Horace is not without a parallel. It was not till released from the duty of reading Virgil as a task, that Gray could feel himself capable of enjoying the beauties of that poet. — MOORE.] ["I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am delighted with Rome. As a whole- ancient and modern, it beats Greece, Constantinople, every thing at least that I have ever seen. But I can't describe, because my first impressions are always strong and confused, and my memory selects and reduces them to order, like distance in the landscape, and blends them better, although they may be less distinct. I have been on horseback most of the day, all days since my arrival. I have been to Albano, its lakes, and to the top of the Alban Mount, and to Frescati, Aricia, &c. As for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the Vatican, Palatine, &c. &c. they are quite inconceivable, and must be seen.” — Byron Letters, May, 1817.] 6 For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult "Historical Illustrations,” p. 46. Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs. He is lowed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writers. Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sila, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a Poster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The atonewat of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.-["Seigneur, vous changez 1 * Ον οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνήσκει νέος Το γὰρ θανεῖν οὐκ αἰσχρον, ἀλλ ̓ αἰσχρῶς θανεῖν. Eich. Frane. Phil. Brunck. Poetæ Gnomici, p. 231. ed. 1784. [Four words, and two initials, compose the whole of the inscription which, whatever was its ancient position, is now placed in front of this towering sepulchre: CECILIA. Q. CRETIC.F. METELLE. CRASSI. It is more likely to have been the pride than the love of Crassus, which raised so superb a memorial to a wife, whose name is not mentioned in history, unless she be supposed to be that lady whose intimacy with Dolabella was so offensive to Tullia, the daughter of Cicero ; she who was divorced by Lentulus Spinther; or she, perhaps the same person, from whose ear the son of Esopus transferred a precious jewel to enrich his daughter. - HOBHOUSE.] The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed crumbled brickwork. Nothing has been told, nothing can be told, to satisfy the belief of any but a Roman antiquary. See" Historical Illustrations," p. 206.-[" The voice of Marius could not sound more deep and solemn among the rummed arches of Carthage, than the strains of the Pilgrim amid the broken shrines and fallen statues of her subduer."- SIR WALTER SCOTT.] 4 The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion entertained of Britain by that orator and his cotemporary Romans, has the following eloquent passage:-"From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty, enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and religious imposture: while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running perhaps the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth: from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline, and corruption of morals: till, by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing every thing that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original barbarism." (See History of the Life of M. Tullius Cicero, sect. vi. vol. ii. p. 102.) CX. Tully was not so eloquent as thou, To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, CXI. Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, And looking to the stars: they had contain'd A spirit which with these would find a home, The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd, But yielded back his conquests: he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd With household blood and wine, serenely wore His sovereign virtues-still we Trajan's name adore. ? CXII. Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race, The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep— The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes-burns with Cicero ! CXIII. The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, From the first hour of empire in the bud To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd; But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd, And Anarchy assumed her attributes; Till every lawless soldier who assail'd Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. CXIV. Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shame— The friend of Petrarch-hope of ItalyRienzi! last of Romans 13 While the tree Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it beThe forum's champion, and the people's chiefHer new-born Numa thou-with reign, alas! too brief. 1 The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Aurelius by St. Paul. See "Historical Illustrations," p. 214. 2 Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes (Eutrop. 1. viii. c. 5.); and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dien, "he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good, and he advanced them; and on this account they could not be the CXV. Egeria! sweet creation of some heart + Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. CXVI. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled The rill runs o'er, and round fern, flowers, and ivy creep, CXVII. Fantastically tangled: the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes. Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its skies. CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria thy all heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befel? This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle! CXIX. And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country."- Hist. Rom. 1. Ixiii. c. 6, 7. 3 The name and exploits of Rienzi must be familiar to the reader of Gibbon. Some details and unedited manuscripts, relative to this unhappy hero, will be seen in the "Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto," p. 248. 4 See Appendix," Historical Notes," No. XXVII. |